So this past week or so of gigs has certainly been a lively one for sure. Where shall I start off, well I guess its best I start off with Last Saturday night and the visit of Sleaford Mods, if you ever imagined a snotty nosed working class version of Dan Le Sac Vs Scroobius Pip, with John Cooper Clarke style raging angry but yet at points utterly hilarious lyrics about working class life.  support came from the rather fantastic doom sludge metal band Henry Blacker, who managed to dig up the renascence to early Melvins with big sludgy riffs and heavily distorted vocals.  Sunday saw me watch what i could only describe as A Randy Newman Look a like performing Crowded House style un emotive pop music, that was the worst of all things as nondescript. You when a band is not bad, in fact they have good musicians but yet don’t seem to have songs with any real sense of passion. Well this is what I witnessed with Ron Pope. It felt about as emotionally charged as Christian rock show just felt too clean and drained of anything with any emotional quality.  I mostly went because Wakey Wakey was supporting who at least seemed to have some emotional interaction with the audience where as it felt like Ron was putting on all his emotion. 

Also opening up the Show was the beautiful voice of Alexz Johnson.

Monday saw me head down to a rather good local line-up of local talent featuring math indie rockers Tiers, Phill Collins sound a likes Moon Club and the ever wonderful Why We Love who were performing a set of entirely new material. 

Wednesday I saw what has to go down as gig of the year so far, Young Fathers at the Louisiana. Edinburgh may not be renowned as a hot bed for alternative hip hop or that the UK could possibly produce an outfit that are so left field and cutting edge and radically different from the likes of Dizzee Rascal and Tiny Tempa. you can see how exactly they could fit in with Anticon’s roster because the nearest thing they reflected was a mixture of Cloudead, why and Subtle mixed in with Afro Jazz influences put onto full on distortions which they made big and boomy with wall to wall Energy.

Support came from wonderfully different and hard to categorise vocal style of Law Holt, her voice was un like many others I’ve heard before, it literally floated on androgynous and emotive. 

Thursday saw me head down The Mothers ruin for a entry night of rock n roll that featured the Greasy Slicks and a rather full on teenage garage blues duo from just down the road in Taunton The Surgeons, who absolutely nailed The Black Keys and Yardbirds RnB style. 

Friday, Valentines Day, or as I call Volentiles Day, because its usually the most miserable day of the year, well anyway I played the lone Cupid. And as the Lone Cupid I hopped around from The Roll For The Soul Cafe, where the Jelas were hosting their ep launch for Beetroot Yourself, as per usual they were wonderfully wonky. Support came from the wonderfully lo fi Trust Fund who were celebrating international Weezer Day. 

I then pegged it off faster then you can say Oh No Big Jeff is coming over to the Exchange for Thought Forms set. Thought Forms are a band that I dare not miss a single second, because they are one of Bristols most exciting guitar bands, managing to fuse together moments of space rock and heavy shoeagaze.  

well that was another great week.